Perspective: Reader-Response Genre: Essay Audience: Peers and Other Counselors Purpose: To think about the lessons this text teaches (i.e. loss, self-worth, etc.) and relate it back to yourself and clients Engagement: Using the text and relating it back to experiences or lessons learned in my own life.
The great thing about books is that they can teach lessons to a variety of individuals. In her book Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse provided the opportunity for many life lessons to be addressed while teaching about a historical moment. No matter one’s life circumstances, the types of books that an individual can find relatable are those that they remember.
Although I do not plan on being a future teacher, but rather a counselor to children who have been through aversive life situations I find literature extremely important for children to read. I read this book when I was younger and I honestly did not get as much out of it as I did reading it the second time around. Through a more in depth analysis of the story and actually being engaged in the book, I learned that the author tried to present many lessons that the main character was going through. It is important to know that you are not alone when facing the difficult situations that life brings. This text offers the reader many opportunities to learn different life lessons, such as the concept of hope, change, and self-worth. I find it important to be able to find themes like this in a text because it can make a difference in the experience for the reader.
One of the most profound sections, in my opinion, was that of ‘Finding a Way’ on page 225. With the future career I want to go into, the sense of finding a purpose and seeing a way out of one’s circumstances is always something that would resonate with me. In this section the reader is reminded of a sense of purpose and hope that exists in the world. The passage “The way I see it, hard times aren’t only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up” provides the reader with the notion that there is more to life than tangible items. I feel as though it is important to realize that material possessions in reality will only bring temporary happiness and ultimately will not lead to a fulfilling life. As humans when it comes to material possessions, such as money, we always want more; there is no such thing as too much. I have found in my life that those individuals that tend to be the happiest and have the most fulfilling life are those who aspire to something more. They spend their lives in service of others, whether they are a teacher, doctor, counselor, or simply a parent. They have a hope that cannot be diminished and dreams that they are always trying to reach, no matter how unrealistic they seem. I have seen this reflected in my own life time and time again. I am the type of person to set the bar high for myself in order to continuously push myself to achieve. I am my worse critic and I exhibit much pressure on myself to be perfect and to be the best I can be. I have never been one to like ‘stuff’, but rather my future dreams pushed me to place high expectations on myself. I quickly learned though that hard times can happen even when you have no material items. For me, the hardest times of my life have been those with which I have seen no way out of my circumstances. I viewed things as hopeless. My sense of purpose was vague and the constant changing of my dreams or my feelings of not being able to obtain them sent me into a tail spin more so than having no money due to being in college. I think this section of the text is important because it shows that there is more to life. Billy Jo learned that although the drought and dust caused hard times, things became even harder to cope with when she lost sight of the hope and dreams she once believed in.
Change is also a common theme within this text. Every child goes through some sort of changes in their life, whether it is changing schools or homes or a parental divorce. No human is exempt from experiencing some sort of change during their lifetime. The way an individual learns to cope with that change is what ultimately makes a difference. In the passage ‘Night Bloomer’ on page 81, a good example of change is portrayed. The author writes “How can such a flower find a way to bloom in this drought, in this wind. It blossomed at night when the sun couldn’t scorch it, when the wind was quiet, when there might have been a sip of dew to freshen it.” This passage is a good example of the ability to adapt to one’s environment and the ability to be resilient despite the circumstances that surround you. There are many times that we are forced to adapt to the changing situations that life brings and sometimes those adaptations can be hard to make. As someone who wants to work with children who have undergone traumatic events, I believe this passage is really important to help aid in teaching children the possibilities of beauty coming out of something that was once ‘broken’ or ‘dead’. It also provides a different view of the concept of light vs. darkness. People tend to fear the dark and find comfort in the light because bad things tend to happen in the dark. This concept can be taken both literally and metaphorically. When it is literally dark out bad things, like robbery or assault, are more likely to happen than if it was light out. Metaphorically, when an individual is going through a rough time, they tend describe the incident as a 'dark time' in their life. This passage shows that sometimes the things that bring us comfort can also be the things that cause destruction, while the very thing we fear can provide the opportunity for something beautiful to happen. From this passage, being in the light meant death and destruction. This imagery allowed for the lesson to be learned that sometimes in the darkest of places the true beauty of something is able to shine through. It also helps to reinforce the notion of hope and the idea that a simple act of nurturance can cause something beautiful to grow out of the darkest of circumstances. This relates nicely to the idea of self-worth and self-acceptance.
In the passage ‘Music’, the author portrays the lesson of getting to know one’s self and accepting who you are. The passage “And I know now that all the time I was trying to get out of the dust, the fact is what I am, I am because of the dust. And what I am is good enough. Even for me” is a beautiful example of self-worth and the realization that your experiences in life make you the person you are. When we are going through the hard times, the only thing we want is for the experience to end. We want the sadness, anger, or the other negative feelings we are exhibiting to just go away so we can be happy again. Many individuals do not want to go through the fire in order to experience the beauty on the other side. We want a way around the pain. The truth is though, if we spent our lives trying to escape our circumstances or trying to avoid difficult situations, we would never grow as individuals. I, personally, have been through many rough situations where I have found myself just asking ‘why’. Why did this have to happen? Why me? What are others going to think of me now? But what I should have been asking myself are questions like, what lesson can I learn from this or how can I grow as a person and use this experience in my future to help others? As we allow our experiences to mold us and grow us, our thinking and view of ourselves begins to change. It becomes less of worrying about what others think about us and more about accepting ourselves for who we are. It becomes about loving ourselves for where we have been, how we have gotten through the hard times, and looking ahead to where we are going in the future. We begin to admire ourselves for being able to make it through the times that we saw no end in sight. The times where resilience shined through despite wanting to just give up because we felt like we were too far in the pit to be pulled out. There comes a point where we realize that we are given experiences in life to help us grow and to make us into the people we were ultimately meant to be. We learn to love and accept ourselves, by far one the greatest lessons we could ever learn for without self-love it is hard to give or receive any other kind of love. For Billy Jo, she had to go through the experience of the dust to learn who she was and what she had to contribute to the world. She was forced to accept who she was. Her experiences eventually made her come to terms with who she is and realize that she is good enough as she is. She was then able to exhibit a sense of self-love, which ultimately would help her achieve a higher sense of self-worth that would help her in future struggles. When you are confident in the person you are and your abilities, hardships tend to be viewed as less of an obstacle and more of a chance for personal growth and reflection. This change in thinking can ultimately change your life as your become less worried about what the world says you should be and more confident in the person you were meant to be.
Out of the Dust
Perspective: Reader-Response
Genre: Essay
Audience: Peers and Other Counselors
Purpose: To think about the lessons this text teaches (i.e. loss, self-worth, etc.) and relate it back to yourself and clients
Engagement: Using the text and relating it back to experiences or lessons learned in my own life.
The great thing about books is that they can teach lessons to a variety of individuals. In her book Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse provided the opportunity for many life lessons to be addressed while teaching about a historical moment. No matter one’s life circumstances, the types of books that an individual can find relatable are those that they remember.
Although I do not plan on being a future teacher, but rather a counselor to children who have been through aversive life situations I find literature extremely important for children to read. I read this book when I was younger and I honestly did not get as much out of it as I did reading it the second time around. Through a more in depth analysis of the story and actually being engaged in the book, I learned that the author tried to present many lessons that the main character was going through. It is important to know that you are not alone when facing the difficult situations that life brings. This text offers the reader many opportunities to learn different life lessons, such as the concept of hope, change, and self-worth. I find it important to be able to find themes like this in a text because it can make a difference in the experience for the reader.
One of the most profound sections, in my opinion, was that of ‘Finding a Way’ on page 225. With the future career I want to go into, the sense of finding a purpose and seeing a way out of one’s circumstances is always something that would resonate with me. In this section the reader is reminded of a sense of purpose and hope that exists in the world. The passage “The way I see it, hard times aren’t only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up” provides the reader with the notion that there is more to life than tangible items. I feel as though it is important to realize that material possessions in reality will only bring temporary happiness and ultimately will not lead to a fulfilling life. As humans when it comes to material possessions, such as money, we always want more; there is no such thing as too much. I have found in my life that those individuals that tend to be the happiest and have the most fulfilling life are those who aspire to something more. They spend their lives in service of others, whether they are a teacher, doctor, counselor, or simply a parent. They have a hope that cannot be diminished and dreams that they are always trying to reach, no matter how unrealistic they seem. I have seen this reflected in my own life time and time again. I am the type of person to set the bar high for myself in order to continuously push myself to achieve. I am my worse critic and I exhibit much pressure on myself to be perfect and to be the best I can be. I have never been one to like ‘stuff’, but rather my future dreams pushed me to place high expectations on myself. I quickly learned though that hard times can happen even when you have no material items. For me, the hardest times of my life have been those with which I have seen no way out of my circumstances. I viewed things as hopeless. My sense of purpose was vague and the constant changing of my dreams or my feelings of not being able to obtain them sent me into a tail spin more so than having no money due to being in college. I think this section of the text is important because it shows that there is more to life. Billy Jo learned that although the drought and dust caused hard times, things became even harder to cope with when she lost sight of the hope and dreams she once believed in.
Change is also a common theme within this text. Every child goes through some sort of changes in their life, whether it is changing schools or homes or a parental divorce. No human is exempt from experiencing some sort of change during their lifetime. The way an individual learns to cope with that change is what ultimately makes a difference. In the passage ‘Night Bloomer’ on page 81, a good example of change is portrayed. The author writes “How can such a flower find a way to bloom in this drought, in this wind. It blossomed at night when the sun couldn’t scorch it, when the wind was quiet, when there might have been a sip of dew to freshen it.” This passage is a good example of the ability to adapt to one’s environment and the ability to be resilient despite the circumstances that surround you. There are many times that we are forced to adapt to the changing situations that life brings and sometimes those adaptations can be hard to make. As someone who wants to work with children who have undergone traumatic events, I believe this passage is really important to help aid in teaching children the possibilities of beauty coming out of something that was once ‘broken’ or ‘dead’. It also provides a different view of the concept of light vs. darkness. People tend to fear the dark and find comfort in the light because bad things tend to happen in the dark. This concept can be taken both literally and metaphorically. When it is literally dark out bad things, like robbery or assault, are more likely to happen than if it was light out. Metaphorically, when an individual is going through a rough time, they tend describe the incident as a 'dark time' in their life. This passage shows that sometimes the things that bring us comfort can also be the things that cause destruction, while the very thing we fear can provide the opportunity for something beautiful to happen. From this passage, being in the light meant death and destruction. This imagery allowed for the lesson to be learned that sometimes in the darkest of places the true beauty of something is able to shine through. It also helps to reinforce the notion of hope and the idea that a simple act of nurturance can cause something beautiful to grow out of the darkest of circumstances. This relates nicely to the idea of self-worth and self-acceptance.
In the passage ‘Music’, the author portrays the lesson of getting to know one’s self and accepting who you are. The passage “And I know now that all the time I was trying to get out of the dust, the fact is what I am, I am because of the dust. And what I am is good enough. Even for me” is a beautiful example of self-worth and the realization that your experiences in life make you the person you are. When we are going through the hard times, the only thing we want is for the experience to end. We want the sadness, anger, or the other negative feelings we are exhibiting to just go away so we can be happy again. Many individuals do not want to go through the fire in order to experience the beauty on the other side. We want a way around the pain. The truth is though, if we spent our lives trying to escape our circumstances or trying to avoid difficult situations, we would never grow as individuals. I, personally, have been through many rough situations where I have found myself just asking ‘why’. Why did this have to happen? Why me? What are others going to think of me now? But what I should have been asking myself are questions like, what lesson can I learn from this or how can I grow as a person and use this experience in my future to help others? As we allow our experiences to mold us and grow us, our thinking and view of ourselves begins to change. It becomes less of worrying about what others think about us and more about accepting ourselves for who we are. It becomes about loving ourselves for where we have been, how we have gotten through the hard times, and looking ahead to where we are going in the future. We begin to admire ourselves for being able to make it through the times that we saw no end in sight. The times where resilience shined through despite wanting to just give up because we felt like we were too far in the pit to be pulled out. There comes a point where we realize that we are given experiences in life to help us grow and to make us into the people we were ultimately meant to be. We learn to love and accept ourselves, by far one the greatest lessons we could ever learn for without self-love it is hard to give or receive any other kind of love. For Billy Jo, she had to go through the experience of the dust to learn who she was and what she had to contribute to the world. She was forced to accept who she was. Her experiences eventually made her come to terms with who she is and realize that she is good enough as she is. She was then able to exhibit a sense of self-love, which ultimately would help her achieve a higher sense of self-worth that would help her in future struggles. When you are confident in the person you are and your abilities, hardships tend to be viewed as less of an obstacle and more of a chance for personal growth and reflection. This change in thinking can ultimately change your life as your become less worried about what the world says you should be and more confident in the person you were meant to be.